Chapter 19
Charlotte opened her bedroom door, the black box clutched in her hand, and peered into the hallway. She did not see or hear Lady Worcester. It had been some time since Lady Worcester had left, and Charlotte had spent the time agonizing over whether to ask Lady Worcester to expound upon how exactly Mrs. Campion came to carry the blue box and how exactly the mouse ended up inside. Charlotte wanted answers. What was the plan and how was the necklace part of the plan?
Genevieve came up the stairs as Charlotte was heading towards Lady Worcester's bedroom.
"Is everything all right, Miss Heywood?" Genevieve asked.
"Um, no. Has Lady Worcester gone to bed?"
"No, she is downstairs in the library. Is there anything I can assist you with?"
"I just need to speak with Lady Worcester. Thank you, Genevieve." Charlotte made her way down the steps and found Lady Worcester at her desk in the library. The door was ajar, and Lady Worcester was writing. She had not yet changed her clothes from the dinner. Charlotte knocked to get Lady Worcester's attention.
"Charlotte," Lady Worcester said, the surprise evident in her voice. "I thought you would be asleep by now."
"I wished to sleep, but it seems impossible at the moment. May I come in?"
"Of course." Lady Worcester set her pen in an inkwell and sat back in her chair. "What seems to be troubling you?"
"This." Charlotte walked closer and showed Lady Worcester the box.
"Do you not like it? I thought the emerald would look divine on you, but if you prefer something else, that can be arranged."
"No, it is not the necklace. The necklace is beautiful. It is certainly the most beautiful thing anyone has ever given me, and I am grateful to you for it. I just...I am just unsure why it was not in my box and how a dead mouse was there instead."
"As I told you, there was always a plan."
"Yes, but you did not tell me the plan involved...deception."
Lady Worcester looked at Charlotte with an unwavering gaze. "I do not know what you mean."
"You said Mrs. Campion was carrying my box when she arrived. And this necklace was inside it. But when I opened the box, there was a dead mouse. That means someone removed the necklace and replaced it with the mouse. Someone...made it appear as if Mrs. Campion had done so. I think...I think that someone was you."
"And how would I have done such a thing, Charlotte? I do not walk around with dead mice under my skirts."
Charlotte stopped and considered Lady Worcester's response. At times, talking to Lady Worcester was like talking to an impenetrable wall. This was one of those times.
"You said the plan was to ensure Mr. Parker's marriage to Mrs. Campion did not take place," Charlotte tried again.
"That is correct," Lady Worcester affirmed.
"If Mrs. Campion appeared to harm me, then perhaps Mr. Parker would not wish to marry her. However, it would still be Mrs. Campion's decision. Mr. Parker could not break the engagement. And so, Mrs. Campion would need a reason to break the engagement—" Charlotte went pale as the realization dawned on her. "You placed the mouse, or you had someone place the mouse in the box, to compel Mrs. Campion to break the engagement! But...but...they are still betrothed to one another."
"As I have told you, you must be patient, Charlotte."
"What did you do?" Charlotte erupted. "Mrs. Campion was innocent! Has she been blamed for this? Was that the plan?"
"Your anger is misplaced, Charlotte. The world is not always fair. For once, you are the winner. Accept it. Embrace it."
"I have won nothing! If the engagement ends, Mr. Parker will think I was involved. He will want nothing to do with me. I have been lied to and made a fool of!"
Lady Worcester's lips clamped together. For the first time during their discussion, she appeared offended. "I have never lied to you," she countered firmly.
"I need you to tell me everything," Charlotte insisted.
"I have told you everything you need to know."
"Is that why we went to the jewelry shop? Did you know Mrs. Campion would be there? Did you go to the Prince Regent, as Mr. Tom Parker thought? Did you ask the Prince Regent to help support Sanditon? Was that part of the plan, too?" The questions tumbled out as fast as Charlotte could speak. She was nearly breathless with frustration. She wanted to continue, but Lady Worcester's butler interrupted them.
"I am sorry to disturb you, Lady Worcester," he said. "Mr. Sidney Parker is here to see Miss Heywood."
"Please, show him in," Lady Worcester invited. She met Charlotte's look of disbelief with one of assurance.
Sidney was overjoyed to see that Charlotte was awake when he entered the library, though she seemed stricken. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing heavily. She was holding a black box in her hand, and after the everything that had happened this evening, he could not fathom what was inside. Lady Worcester seemed unaffected by whatever they were discussing.
"Lady Worcester, Miss Heywood," he said with a nod of his head. "Please forgive the lateness of the hour."
"Not at all, Mr. Parker," Lady Worcester replied. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your company twice in one evening?"
Sidney swallowed, still not quite believing the words he was about to say. "Uh, it seems that I find myself no longer engaged to Mrs. Campion."
Charlotte's eyes widened further, and she looked at Lady Worcester, then slowly turned back to Sidney.
"Well, isn't this a shocking turn of events?" Lady Worcester said.
"Yes," Sidney agreed. "It was all quite...sudden. Considering the turn of events, I was hoping to speak with Miss Heywood."
"Why, yes, of course." Lady Worcester placed the paper she had been writing on inside a book and rose from the desk. "Good night, Charlotte. Good night, Mr. Parker."
Sidney bowed his head again and watched Lady Worcester leave. She closed the door quietly behind her. He was alone with Charlotte again, and again quite nervous. He had thought of several things to say on the ride back to Lady Worcester's home: how incredibly sorry he was that he had put Charlotte through of all of this, how indescribably happy he was that it was all over and they could now be together. But Charlotte was not reacting with elation. In fact, she had not changed from her position in front of Lady Worcester's desk. Sidney could not read her expression, and it worried him. He wanted to collapse the space between them, to be near her, but he dared not move towards her. She seemed to purposely be keeping him away.
"So, you are no longer engaged?" Charlotte said after what felt like the longest silence. She had heard him say it, but it did not seem real. Lady Worcester had been right. Her awful plan had succeeded.
"That is correct. I am no longer engaged."
"How...how did this happen?"
"It seems Mrs. Campion and I are...incompatible."
"Is that what she said?"
"It is perhaps more what I said. I finally told her the truth about my feelings toward her. I told her that her actions ten years ago, when she broke our engagement to marry Mr. Campion, led me to believe that she had placed the mouse in your box. She deceived me then, and I believed she had deceived me tonight. She did not take kindly to my words and said that I had insulted her to a degree which she had never been insulted, among other things that I shall not repeat. She then ended our engagement."
"She was telling the truth," Charlotte said flatly.
Sidney's brow furrowed. "I do not understand."
"She was telling the truth about not placing the mouse in the box. It wasn't her. It was...well, I do not know exactly who it was. But it was not her. Lady Worcester arranged for it somehow, in order to compel Mrs. Campion to end the engagement. You may have insulted her, but she had already decided that she was ending the engagement. Because she had no choice in the matter."
Sidney was confounded. He now understood why Charlotte looked so ill. "How do you know this?"
Charlotte opened the box to reveal the necklace. "Because this was the necklace that was supposed to be in the blue box. It was in the blue box when Mrs. Campion arrived. Lady Worcester gave me the necklace a short time ago."
It all suddenly made sense. Lady Worcester asking the Prince Regent to assist. Her private meeting with Sidney. The dinner. Charlotte's presence in London. It had all been happening around Sidney and he had had no inkling.
"My God..." he said.
"I did not know," Charlotte said. "I did not know about any of it. Lady Worcester came to Willingden and said she had a plan to stop the wedding. But every time I asked, she wouldn't say what it was. I still do not know how she did it. I believe she spoke to the Prince Regent, but she wouldn't say for certain. That was what I was asking her when you arrived."
"She did speak to the Prince Regent," Sidney admitted.
"What?" Charlotte cried. "How do you know?"
"Because she told me so. We met on Tuesday, at her request. She told me she had asked the Prince Regent to assist. I had called on her when I was searching for a lender for Tom, but she was not here. She said she was merely answering my call. She said everything she was doing was for you."
Charlotte shook her head furiously. "I do not see how that is possible. She has done terrible things. Mrs. Campion is innocent. She did not deserve to be accused of something she did not do."
"Yes, she did." Sidney looked at Charlotte and thought of how unfailingly just she was. The thought warmed him. But in this case, she was wrong. Mrs. Campion deserved everything that was happening to her.
"How can you say that?" Charlotte asked incredulously. "This was achieved by duplicitous means. Does that not matter to you?"
"It matters to me that you were injured, yes. Was that part of Lady Worcester's plan as well?"
"No, it was an accident. I suppose I was only meant to open the box."
"Then I can only be so angry because I am free now. And everything is as it should be."
Sidney stepped towards Charlotte, unable to continue being so distanced from her. She met his eyes questioningly, but he kept walking until he was close enough to touch her. He removed the box from her right hand and placed it on the desk, then grasped both of her hands in his. Charlotte looked up at him, wanting to dissolve into him. Was this not the moment she had been wishing for since that day on the hillside when she left Sanditon? Had she not imagined the rapture of feeling Sidney's hands enfolded around hers again? Yes, yes she had. Then why did she feel so confused?
"Charlotte," Sidney breathed. "I have considered what I would say to you if we ever had this chance again, and none of the words seem adequate. I...I have caused you an indeterminate amount of misery and I am more sorry for that than I can express. There has not been a day since we parted that I have not thought of you, that I have not longed for you. As soon as my engagement ended, I came here to tell you and to ask for your forgiveness. To ask if hope still exists for us."
Charlotte's lips quivered and she pulled her hands from his. "I...I do not know," she said. Everything was happening so quickly. One moment, she was telling Sidney good-bye for what she truly believed was the last time, and the next, he was asking her to forgive him and to start anew.
"Please, Charlotte," Sidney implored. Charlotte had crossed to the other side of the room, creating another ocean between them. He was afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his life. "Please tell me I am not too late. Have...have your feelings changed?"
Charlotte was not facing him, and she did not respond.
Sidney swallowed the lump in his throat. "Is there another?" he pressed gently.
She wiped the tears falling from her eyes and turned. "No, there is no one else."
"Then what is it?"
"I...I just need time." Charlotte felt as though she had been set adrift in that ocean. She had no bearings and could not see the shoreline. From the harrowing dinner to the revelation of Lady Worcester's plan to the end of Sidney's engagement, her world was a starkly different place than when she had woken up that morning.
Sidney struggled to hide his disappointment. It had not occurred to him that she would be anything less than euphoric. But she was here because she had wanted to stop his wedding, so he knew she still cared for him. He took a modicum of comfort from that.
"All right," he said, suppressing the urge to dry the tears on her cheeks. "May I call on you tomorrow?"
Tomorrow. Charlotte had said she wanted to go home to Willingden tomorrow. Again, how amazingly things had changed.
"Yes," she replied.
Sidney's smile in response was small and strained. "Then I shall call on you tomorrow morning. Good night, Miss Heywood. Rest well."
With that, Sidney bowed and departed the library. The walk through the great hall was tortuous. Once again, he was leaving his heart behind. But Charlotte had said she would see him tomorrow. It was one more thing from which he could take comfort.